In the ongoing Ukraine/Russia dispute, who is the aggressor and what is the essence of the dispute?

U.S. media and government spokespeople all tell us that Russian leader Vlad Putin is the aggressor. It is Putin, we're told, who is working out an evil plan to reanimate the former Soviet Union.....aggressively "taking" Crimea while preparing to "expand" Russia's power in the region by instigating unrest in Ukraine.

"A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens—or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state,” Kerry told the group of senior officials and experts from the U.S., Western Europe, Russia, and Japan. “Once you put that frame in your mind, that reality, which is the bottom line, you understand how imperative it is to get to the two-state solution, which both leaders, even yesterday, said they remain deeply committed to.”

Politico.com is one of the best examples available of what I often call Village media. Every weekday morning a representative from Politico appears on the oh-so-liberal MSNBC cable network to explain to audiences what the important Politico Playbook Play-of-the-Day is. It's all so predictably nauseating.

Politico has the GOP's back most of the time, but that is because the GOP traditionally has been the political party of the rich few. Who Politico really serves is not so much the GOP, but the rich few the GOP traditionally has represented.

As more states pass laws to increase the proliferation of guns in society, society will change.....and not for the better. Instead of more guns in more places bringing the safety so many enthusiasts say it will.....more guns in more places will only lead to a more fearful society, less willing to participate in social events and public activities.

A Georgia man panicked parents and children at a local park and baseball field by randomly walking around and displaying his gun to anyone he encountered in the parking lot.

I often criticize, and justifiably, corporate media's modern habit of "both sides do it" "journalism." In this perversion of what we used to call reporting, no matter how extreme or obstructionistic Republicans have been these last 5+ years.....corporate reporting informs us constantly that both Democrats and Republicans are equally at fault.

I call this new media paradigm the "gutless" method. Rather than point out the actual facts of any given political issue, like, say, new voter ID laws and the non-existent voter fraud "problem", professional "reporters" inform us of what Republicans say..."we're protecting the integrity of the voting process"....and what Democrats say...."there is no voter fraud problem and voter ID laws will disenfranchise poorer voters".....and refuse to tell readers or viewers which one of those two is based in fact, and which isn't.

“F**k that,” he said. “I’m telling you that if that happens, it’s going to spark a civil war, and I’ll be glad to fire the first shot. I’m not putting up with it, you shouldn’t put up with it, and I need all you patriots to start thinking about what you’re going to do. Load your damn mags, make sure your rifle’s clean, pack a backpack with some food in it, and get ready to fight.

When the Supreme Court issued it's Obamacare ruling, individual states were granted.....and for no obvious reason....the right to opt out of the Medicaid expansion provision of the law. Chief Justice Roberts argued that the individual mandate compelling all U.S. citizens to purchase health care insurance was legal and not optional....yet, in the same ruling, Roberts argued just the opposite when it came to Medicaid expansion and the states. States could simply opt out. The ruling was a hodgepodge of inconsistency searching for a unifying rationale.

The most bitter and hateful action by Republicans since Americans elected their first black president has been GOP governors and legislators refusing to expand Medicaid in their respective states. Red states have turned down millions and millions of "free" federal dollars....all during high unemployment times.....while purposely keeping millions of poor working citizens from gaining access to health insurance.

Just imagine for a moment.....you are a poor working citizen of Georgia or Kansas. You don't earn enough to be able to purchase health insurance but you make too much to qualify for standard Medicaid. The U.S. Congress and the president pass a bill to expand Medicaid eligibility to citizens earning up to 133% of the poverty level. But your state governor refuses to allow the Medicaid expansion to be implemented in your state.

"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy," they write, "while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."

I have been hearing from conservative pundits that the case of Cliven Bundy and his Great Cowpoke Adventure is actually a legitimate case of "civil disobedience." Bundy, according to National Review Online writers, is just like Ghandi...or perhaps George Washington. No, seriously....that's what is being written in defense of Rancher Bundy.

NRO's Rich Lowry claimed that Americans should have "sympathy" for Bundy even though Lowry also admitted that Bundy was wrong about the authority of the federal government. But Lowry states that what Bundy and his defenders are doing by protesting is in the "best American tradition of civil disobedience."

Even though the zombie lie is hard to kill, employers are not our economy's job creators. Instead, as we've learned, consumers are our economy's job creators. Employers respond to demand.....demand is created by consumers with cash and/or credit. There's nothing radical or unusual about any of that. It's how an economy operates.

The problem with believing the zombie lie is that it distorts reality...it distorts the cause and effect nature of an economy, and it leads to seriously misplaced priorities. If the zombie lie that employers are our job creators is believed by enough people in positions of power, then, as we are witnessing today, policies aimed at helping the authentic job creators, consumers.....will be rejected.....or in the case of Oklahoma, made illegal.

I have no idea what the source of the problem is. I suppose it could be prescription drug abuse, I hear that's a huge national problem. Brain eating bacteria has crossed my mind, but most sufferers of that rare disorder are usually not invited on to the Sunday "news" shows. I mean, at least not on a regular basis.

Perhaps it's just me. Maybe I'm the one with the problem.....always arrogantly insisting that words have meaning, when it is becoming increasingly clear that they really don't.....have any meaning at all.

I learned something yesterday. I learned that if you are dependent on handouts from the federal government to make your living.....and you owe the federal government over one million dollars in unpaid fees.....and you refuse to pay...militia members and Tea Party Patriots have your back.

In Tea and Militia-Land, when one of your members jettisons personal responsibility to honor agreements entered into with the federal government.....and decides to simply freeload off of.....Uncle Sugar's Santa-bag of assets....Fox, the Teas and the Militias have your back when the government finally says enough.

If you have never watched Steven Colbert's brilliant takedown of the entire Bush administration and the media members who adored him at the 2006 White House Correspondents Roast....you should.

Colbert is a genius when it comes to ironic humor. Whereas Jon Stewart's schtick is often predictable, what with the often-annoying, staged bleeping of Stewart's various usages of the F-word....Colbert's faux-conservative imitation on his show is comedic brilliance which successfully unmasks the phoniness of many political players.

Remember the "red line" that President Obama declared couldn't be crossed by Syrian leader Assad? Obama's domestic political opponents remember it. I still hear neo-cons and Foxians mocking the Obama "red line" comment as evidence of how "weak" the president is in his foreign policy dealings. Like this from the Wall Street Journal....

...it's no coincidence that Mr. Putin asserted himself in Ukraine not long after Mr. Obama retreated in humiliating fashion from his "red line" in Syria.

Here is Dick Cheney on Meet the Press five days after September 11, 2001.....

"We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We've got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we're going to be successful. That's the world these folks operate in, and so it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective."

I have fond memories of the 2012 GOP presidential primary season. Amusing memories, actually. The kind of memories that make you chuckle years later. The Teas, invigorated by their House capture in the 2010 midterms aberration, were going to, by god, use their alleged momentum to choose the 2012 GOP presidential candidate. It was a time of high expectations and much merriment.

GOP primary frontrunners in the spring of 2012 were always in a constant state of flux. For a short while, book-seller Newt Gingrich was on top as the favorite....then Mr. 9-9-9, aka Herman Cain. Even Michelle Bachmann spent a day or two on top of the favorite list. But the shites and giggles really began in earnest when Donald Trump topped the GOP favorite list for a brief spell when he rallied the Teas with his talk about birth certificates.

"Never in the history of the world has any measure been brought here so insidiously designed as to prevent business recovery, to enslave workers and to prevent any possibility of the employers providing work for the people," said Rep. John Taber (R-NY).

That sounds familiar, doesn't it? That statement sounds like something today's Republicans have been claiming about raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. The reason that 1935 statement sounds familiar is because American conservatives have always called any initiative, any legislation which helps the non-rich as a business and jobs destroyer.

The attack on the CIA outpost masquerading as a consulate in Benghazi, Libya came on Sept.11, 2012. The date is important if you want to understand....check that....to follow the Republican conspiracy theory which immediately developed after news of the violent event was reported.

Sept. 11. 2012 was less than 60 days before the U.S. general election. Republicans constructed their conspiracy theory based on that timing. From the conspiracy's inception, conservative enemies of President Obama accused him and others of misleading the public over what happened that September evening in the hellhole northeastern region of a Libyan nation in turmoil.

Before yesterday's Supreme Court ruling, the virtually enslaved rich few in the U.S. could just barely purchase enough free speech each election cycle to make a real difference. This egregious problem which, yes, only affected a handful of very rich Americans, troubled Chief Justice Roberts greatly. After all, what good is all that money if it can't speak freely....as our Founding Fathers intended.

Silly people through the years have insisted that too much money in politics leads to corruption. Of course that's total foolishness....because as we've learned in the John Roberts School For Billionaire Legacy Building.....money equals free speech, and how can any true patriot ever expend too much free speech, right?

Republican leaders had considered not doing a budget this year, since spending cuts for the current fiscal year and the next were set in December with passage of a bipartisan plan. But House conservatives demanded a document they could take to their strongly Republican districts.

Which clearly means that when House Republicans vote on the newest Paul Ryan budget next week, they will be doing so only to excite their "strongly Republican districts." So, Ryan's proposal is 100% political in nature. Just another cheap GOP stunt to add to an already huge pile.

The first year of Obamacare enrollment is officially over. Despite website launch problems in October, it looks very much like the CBO's estimated number of 7 million Americans signing up for the new health insurance program will be close to the money.

Paul Krugman wondered yesterday how Republicans would respond to the total number of announced Obamacare enrollees....“[P]eople in the GOP are still working with a completely wrong narrative — namely, that Obamacare is failing, and that these are desperate ploys to save a sinking ship. The reality is quite different: enrollments have clearly surged in the final month…. How will the GOP respond when the numbers come in?”

I never wondered how Republicans would respond. I knew how they would respond.